The Death of the Trans-Atlantic World
by Robert Ingraham
Prologue
Dumbed-down Americans of today usually demand immediate, simple and practical solutions to the problems that the nation is facing. Serious political discourse has been replaced by Hollywood-style manipulation of the citizenry, resulting in a situation where a shallow-minded people are led around by the nose, with little thought or consideration given to the deeper issues of the day. Almost everything that most people think about the political process is a mere “opinion,” created for them by the media and their masters on Wall Street—and then swallowed by a gullible public.
Eight years ago it was the media hype and hysteria around the “new hope” personified by Barack Obama which swept the country. Today it is the macho anti-establishment rhetoric of Donald Trump that has seemingly “come out of nowhere” to galvanize the population. Neither of these represent actual political phenomena; rather, today’s trans-Atlantic culture is an Orwellian society, driven by manufactured popular opinion and contentless media posturing, all aimed at a malleable electorate which has lost the ability to think historically.
As a result, the critically important historical moment which America and the rest of the world now finds itself at is lost on the people of America. They simply have no idea of what is actually going on. They have no understanding of the profound importance of the choices now facing the nation; nay, they do not even know that such choices exist.
I. The British Empire
On Nov. 14, 1716 the great historical fighter and genius Gottfried Leibniz died. With him died all hope of reversing the process of the transformation of England into a stratified oligarchical state—into the headquarters for a new global empire.
For more than forty years, since his arrival in Paris in 1672, the towering personality of Leibniz had provided the leadership in Europe to resurrect the outlook of the fifteenth-century Florentine Renaissance. In science, philosophy, economics and diplomacy it was the mind of Leibniz which terrified the oligarchical rulers of Europe. It was Leibniz who revived and deepened the approach of Nicholas of Cusa, Filippo Brunelleschi, and Johannes Kepler, and who uncompromisingly defended and promulgated the true creative nature of the human species.
Between his arrival in Hannover in 1679 up until his death in 1716 Leibniz led a fight to establish England as a new center for republican and Renaissance values. This battle took on greater urgency after the Dutch invasion of 1688 and the subsequent efforts of the oligarchical Whig Junto to establish an oligarchical state and to clone the monetary and financial practices of Amsterdam onto London.
By no later than 1696 Leibniz was joined in this fight by Jonathan Swift, and after Leibniz helped sponsor the career of George Frideric Handel in England in 1710, that composer too became a leading ally in the fight against the growing ascendency of oligarchic culture and imperial practices in England.
 With the death of Queen Anne in 1714, the possibility of a Leibniz-influenced monarchy in Britain also died.
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The death of Queen Anne in 1714, followed two years later by the passing of Gottfried Leibniz, doomed these efforts within the British isles. The decisive victory of Britain in the Seven Years War and the provisions of the 1763 Treaty of Paris would establish the global hegemony of the British Empire as well as the relegation of continental Europe into a permanent subservience to that system of empire. Leibniz’s efforts would live on, however, and be partially realized in 1776 and 1789 with the founding of the United States of America, a nation whose historic mission, as defined from the very beginning by Alexander Hamilton, was one of overthrowing the oligarchical power of Britain and promulgating a true human culture of progress and creativity. That mission, a sacred trust upon which the rest of humanity placed its hope, was never fully realized. By the Twentieth Century it was in retreat, and, as of 2016, it is a hair’s-breadth away from vanishing forever.
Unless sufficient numbers of Americans, including those more intelligent individuals who inhabit influential positions within certain leading institutions, begin to recognize the true nature and the danger of the current crisis, the historic legacy of America is likely to be written for future generations as one of a great Shakespearean tragedy—of what might have been, of an unrealized potential for human development—a failure of the people of the nation to rise to the necessary level of culture and moral courage. The story of America will become only one more example of an unsuccessful attempt to establish republican culture and one more defeated effort to resist British imperial power.
Destroying the Human Identity
In a public discussion with the LaRouche PAC Policy Committee on March 7, 2016, Lyndon LaRouche stated the following:
Go back to the early Nineteenth Century, or into the Nineteenth Century, as such, before Bertrand Russell, and the Bertrand Russell effect is the thing that has destroyed the trans-Atlantic community. But Russell was evil. He was successfully evil. And so, therefore, you see the possibility and the implications. The development of the minds of the people, since the beginning of Bertrand Russell’s appearance on the screen, has been one of continuing, not even evil, but that kind of force of destruction. People are becoming more and more stupid, more and more insane.1
In his Four Reports, particularly in his 1791 Report on the Subject of Manufactures, Alexander Hamilton defined not merely an economic policy for the United States, but a cultural outlook. For Hamilton, George Washington, and their allies, the concept of the nature of mankind was the Leibnizian view. The creative potential which exists within each human individual—this is what lies at the core of Hamilton’s “economics.” A future orientation of progress, scientific advancement, and the potential for an increasing perfectibility of human society defined America’s mission in the eyes of Hamilton and his friends.
This was also the outlook of Gottfried Leibniz, and, as Leibniz fully understood, it is in the realm of defining the true nature of the human species that the actual warfare against the oligarchical system takes place.
As both Jason Ross2 of the LaRouche Basement team and Dr. Ernie Shapiro of the Manhattan Project have recently demonstrated, the crucial point of attack taken by Leibniz in his fight with Isaac Newton is the nature of the human identity. For Leibniz, man is made in the image of the Creator, and the human mind possesses wondrous qualities of reason and creativity. For Newton, an employee of the ascendent empire faction in London, man is a beast, a wretch—incapable of understanding universal processes or unleashing the secrets of the universe through actual human discovery.
Through the efforts of the British Royal Society and individuals such as Jeremy Bentham, Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, Charles Darwin, and Thomas Huxley, Newton’s oligarchical view of human nature spread through both the Anglo-American world as well as into continental Europe during the entirety of the Nineteenth Century. This became the culture—as well as the hegemonic “scientific” method—of the entire trans-Atlantic world.
 Library of Congress
Turning point, 1901: U.S. President William McKinley is killed by a British-steered assassin to put Anglophile Vice President Teddy Roosevelt in the driver’s seat. Overnight, with the help of the media, the British went from being our historic enemy to our dearest friend. Teddy Roosevelt corresponded secretly with King Edward VII. In the drawing, Leon Czolgosz, an anarchist influenced by Emma Goldman, shoots McKinley in a receiving line with a revolver wrapped in a handkerchief.
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In 1903, less than two years after the murder of U.S. President William McKinley, the British aristocrat Lord Bertrand Russell published The Principles of Mathematics. It is in this early work that Russell first argued his thesis that mathematics and logic are identical, and since, according to Russell, simple logic is the highest form of mental activity that the human species is capable of, it follows that all human mental processes can be defined in mathematical terms.3 With this one writing, further developed in many subsequent works, Russell denies that human creativity exists. He denies the very essence of the human identity.
Russell’s 1903 work was only the opening salvo. This oligarchical onslaught reached a crescendo with the assault against Einstein at the 1927 Fifth Solvay Conference and then escalated after World War II. The development of modern-day “Information Theory” is but one of the many effects of the supremacy of Russell’s views within the scientific establishment. Russell denies true human discovery and the Renaissance method of hypothesis. The twentieth-century dominance of Russell’s views within the scientific establishment and the intelligentsia of the trans-Atlantic world has led to a twenty-first-century culture of despair, pessimism, and hedonism.
This has been the intent of the degenerate oligarchy since the time of Leibniz. In the Twentieth Century this anti-human outlook came to dominate the trans-Atlantic world, corrupting all national cultures in Europe and the Americas. Despite sporadic resistence and counter-measures, trans-Atlantic culture is now fully subservient to the bestial outlook of Russell and his imperial friends.
II. The Impending Tragedy of the United States
For the entirety of its existence the United States has existed within a global environment dominated by the British Empire. America never fully succeeded in fulfilling its raison d’être—to destroy the power and outlook of the British Empire. Victories have been won, but the power and control of the British Empire has never been broken. The death of Hamilton shattered the initial American effort, and after the election of Thomas Jefferson in 1800, the vision and intent of the first Washington Administration became a minority view throughout most of the subsequent history of America. The ever-weakening republican impulse was fighting within a global environment controlled by Britain.
The number of truly great U.S. Presidents—Washington, Quincy Adams, Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt—can be counted on the fingers of one hand. A small handful of others, including Grant, McKinley, Kennedy, and Reagan also demonstrated admirable courage in fighting for the American republican outlook. Almost all of the rest have been worthless, and more than a few outright scoundrels and traitors.
After 1900 things became much worse, as the culture of America was perverted and degraded and the true American identity began to vanish. Since then there have been four crucial turning points, each of which greatly worsened the situation inside the United States:
• 1901—The assassination of William McKinley. This act brought to a sudden end the 1861-1901 Lincoln Era. The Teddy Roosevelt presidency, combined with the early twentieth-century role of Bertrand Russell, initiated the process of assimilating the United States into the practices, culture, philosophy and scientific methodology of the British Empire.
• The 1944-1945 turning point in the United States, including the FBI-orchestrated right-wing turn in America, the death of Franklin Roosevelt, and the social and strategic counter-revolution carried out under Harry Truman. These developments resulted in the full integration of the United States into the British-controlled trans-Atlantic system—culturally, economically, and geopolitically.
 National Law Enforcement Museum
Turning point, 1944-1945: Harry S Truman becomes President at Franklin D. Roosevelt’s death on April 12, 1945, and supports the FBI takeover of the country, under way since 1944. In this 1950 photo, Truman smiles at FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover at the National Crime Conference in Washington, as Attorney General Howard McGrath looks on.
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• The defeat of the 1980-86 collaboration between Lyndon LaRouche and Ronald Reagan around the Strategic Defense Initiative and the subsequent imprisonment of LaRouche in 1989. This destroyed the last significant opportunity to reverse the post-1945 pro-imperial trend within the United States.
 EIRNS/Stuart Lewis
Turning point, 1986-1989: The collaboration between Lyndon LaRouche and President Ronald Reagan around the Strategic Defense Initiative is defeated, and LaRouche is framed and imprisoned in 1989. The LaRouche-Reagan collaboration was the last significant chance to reverse the pro-imperial trend in the United States. Here, LaRouche and Reagan at a 1980 candidates debate in Concord, N.H.
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• The period from 2001 to the present, inclusive of the entirety of the presidencies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama. These 15 years have witnessed an unprecedented destruction of America’s productive capabilities, combined with a devastating intellectual, cultural and moral degeneracy, which now poses the question of whether the nation can continue to exist in its current form.
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White House/Pete Souza
Turning point, 2001 to present: The presidencies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama have witnessed an unprecedented destruction of America’s creative and productive capabilities. Here, President Obama jokes with George W. Bush aboard Air Force One before departure for South Africa, Dec. 9, 2013.
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The current trans-Atlantic reality was not always so. John Quincy Adams’ actions on behalf of a “Community of Principle” among nations, Abraham Lincoln’s battle with the British-sponsored slave system of the Confederacy and the late nineteenth-century initiatives of James Blaine and William McKinley against the British Empire are all representative of the positive thread that runs through American history. But McKinley was murdered one hundred fifteen years ago, and except for the twelve-year presidency of Franklin Roosevelt, this recent era of more than one century has been characterized by the steady absorption of the United States into the policies and cultural outlook of the trans-Atlantic world.
We now find ourselves in a situation where the once-productive economy of the United States is a rubble heap. Our space program has been almost eliminated. The banking and financial system only continues to exist through outlandish and unsustainable gambling methods, ready to come crashing down at any moment. Most Americans have now joined with the residents of Britain and continental Europe in hysterical opposition to the development of nuclear power, perhaps the clearest example of the breakdown of cognitive abilities within the population. The educational system no longer works, and tens of millions, particular among the youth, clamor for the legalization of “recreational” drugs. A bestial view of mankind has become the dominant cultural matrix.
This is not sustainable. This is the death of our national culture. This is a tragedy on the real-world stage, as everything which was established in 1775-1789 is about to be lost.
 A seismic realignment of human affairs, as unstoppable as the Fifth-century self-destruction of the Roman Empire, is already underway. America must ally with Russia and China against the imperial interests of London and Wall Street. Here, the Ruins of the Forum (1742) by Eighteenth-century Italian master Canaletto.
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III. The End of the trans-Atlantic World
One of the more despicable features of current trans-Atlantic culture is a Euro-centric or Western-centric view of the world. Many Europeans like to pride themselves that they are not as stupid as Americans, that they are more knowledgeable about world affairs, but the issue here is not knowledge but chauvinism. Almost all Americans and Europeans have an ingrained cultural outlook of a trans-Atlantic-centered world view. European culture, of which the United States is an offshoot, is accepted as the most advanced in human history. Lip service is paid to the equality of all human beings, but it is quietly understood that Europe and America were the creators of modern art, science, and music. All other cultures, all other nations, although perhaps interesting, are inferior.
This outlook goes beyond the cultural realm into the arena of geopolitics and power. Beginning with the sixteenth-century colonial expeditions of Spain and Portugal, and continuing up to the present day, the trans-Atlantic nations have insisted that it is their right to run the world. Particularly, beginning with the establishment of the British Empire in 1763, and continuing through all of the Nineteenth Century and into World War II, the vast majority of the peoples of the world were reduced to the status of colonial subjects of the European powers. This lasted for centuries.
That legacy, ingrained into trans-Atlantic culture, has led to a type of arrogance which one sees today in Barack Obama or in the reactions of Angela Merkel and other European leaders to the recent rational measures taken by Vladimir Putin. The attitude is simply, “We must be obeyed.” This arrogance of power is now disintegrating, and it is soon to be “gone with the wind.” The way in which the world has operated for the past three centuries is about to undergo a radical transformation. A seismic realignment of human affairs, as unstoppable as the self-destruction of the fifth-century Roman Empire, is already underway. The reality is that in the decades ahead Europe will increasingly be relegated to the fringes of the economic and scientific power emerging out of Asia.
A Dying Society
Every single nation in Western and Central Europe has a birth rate below replacement levels. As a people they are willing themselves out of existence. In order for a society to reproduce itself it is necessary for every woman of child-bearing age to bear, on average, 2.1 children. Every European nation, with the singular exception of Putin’s Russia, is below that. Germany, Italy, Austria, and Switzerland are among the lowest in the world in birth rates. In southern and eastern Europe, where the effects of economic looting by the European Union have been the most brutal, birth rates have dropped below 1.3 per adult woman. If this continues the population there will be cut in half in just 45 years. In Italy, many cities, such as Milan and Bologna recorded rates lower than 1.0, which are the lowest birthrates in the entire world.
This process of societal suicide has been accompanied by a dramatic collapse of culture.
Europeans, even 20 to 30 years ago, prided themselves on a vibrant classical music tradition, including not just premier orchestra and opera houses, but, far more important, a classical tradition in families, neighborhoods, the churches, and the schools. The German phenomenon of musikabends is paradigmatic of this tradition. Today, much of this is gone, vanished, and only sustained by a dwindling number of participants. And for many of the opera and concert-goers in Paris, Berlin, Vienna, and Milan—they have lost the ability to morally distinguish classical culture from the hegemonic bestial pop musical culture. What the music of Mozart, Bach, and Beethoven tells us about the true nature of the human mind, the human soul and the human identity is struggling to survive.
The United States has not been immune to the effects of this deep cultural pessimism. Six years into the presidency of George W. Bush, in 2007, U.S. births dropped below replacement level for the first time in the nation’s history. By 2014 a study by the Centers for Disease Control reported that an American woman will give birth to an average of 1.88 children over her lifetime, a record low in American history
A Sudden Change
During the same discussion with the LaRouche PAC Policy Committee cited above, Lyndon LaRouche had the following to say:
Everything has changed. Everything that was understood beforehand, is no longer true. And we get intimations of that, as well as direct observations. And this is really something. We are at the point where the entire U.S. system is on the verge of a general collapse. That’s what’s on now. That’s the situation. That’s the reality. And there’s no hope, there’s no hope that under the present programs, that the U.S. system will able to continue to operate in its customary way. It’s about ready to collapse. And that’s what the general condition is.
And so what they’re trying to do is cover up this fact, that there is no solution available for the entire economy. The entire economy is vulnerable. It could disintegrate very rapidly. And the warnings were given beforehand, even years beforehand. And we’ve come to a point, they’re still doing the same old stupid thing. And it’s worse than ever before.
So, you’re in a situation where we cannot be secure in any assumption about what the next situation is going to be, because there can be different kinds of reactions to what this crisis, which is coming down on us. It can be, some people can handle it, some people can deal with it, Some people could respond in a rational way. . . .
So, we’re working on an enigma, of which we have certain signs of possibility. That’s what we have.
On the surface we can say that the errors of the United States, its characteristic, you could talk about various parts of Europe, their follies, and characteristics, they are all there. But the question is, where are the solutions found?
The solutions are found in Putin, who’s a leader, China, a leader, and other nations which are being teased into that category. They’re not into it. I mean, India is not into that category, it’s on the edge of it. It’s on the edge of the possibility of it. And other parts of the area, there are some that could become something.
It’s the end of the old system. It needs to be replaced. It can be done. It’s dangerous. Don’t lose your nerve.
The British imperial system has reached the terminus of its quarter-millennium existence. It is bankrupt, economically ruined, and morally degenerate. If America remains locked into the axioms of the trans-Atlantic world, it will go down with it. Nothing can prevent that.
What is required is a shift. Everything doesn’t have to happen at once. The Florentine Renaissance wasn’t created in one day. But any hope for the future does depend an a decision being made, and that decision must be made by a growing number of Americans as well as leaders within the nation’s establishment. America must ally with Russia and China against the interests of London and Wall Street. We must cut the trans-Atlantic system loose. This means shutting down the practices of Wall Street, permanently closing all of the hedge funds and other speculative institutions, and initiating economic reconstruction.
Again, none of this can be fully realized in one day or one week, but the decision to act can be instantaneous. As Lyndon LaRouche stated above, we live in a very dangerous world. The shift required to see our way through this danger is to simply offer a hand of friendship to Russia and China—to say, “We no longer are bound by our traditional ties with Britain and Europe. We want to work with you to build a better world.” An obvious place to start would be in full collaboration on a crash space program. That decision will change everything.
1. The full show is available at https://larouchepac.com/20160307/larouchepac-policy-committee-show-march-7-2016
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